Breaking Wild

BREAKING WILD has us talking. From publicists to editors to sales reps, many on the Berkley team have read, raved, and passed along their galleys of Pushcart Prize-nominated author Diane Les Becquets’ (pronounced le beck) gripping, evocative novel about two strong women drawn to the western Colorado wilderness. The author of three YA novels, Les Becquets arrives with an adult debut that is a taut, compelling page-turner. The author’s vivid description of the beautiful but treacherous terrain, realistic depictions of hunting and tracking (informed by her own background), and compelling dual stories of two women’s complicated lives make for a novel worthy of the incredible buzz it’s already generating.

Amy Raye Latour has always found solace in stretches of wild backcountry. Leaving behind her husband and children for a weekend, she ventures out alone while on a hunting trip with two male companions. But things go terribly wrong as heavy snow and bad choices make it impossible for Amy Raye to make it safely back to camp. When she doesn’t return, a massive search and rescue operation ensues.

Ranger Pru Hathaway, along with her search and rescue dog Kona, responds to the call. After more snowfall and few leads, the operation turns into a search and recovery for a body. But the more Pru learns about Amy Raye and her past, the more she thinks that Amy Raye is still alive. And Pru’s belief is quickly becoming an obsession with finding the woman whose life is just as mysterious as the clues she has left behind.

BREAKING WILD was inspired in part by Les Becquets’ own life: Tracking a bull elk solo while on a hunting trip, she found herself lost deep in the woods. It was raining, the sky was darkening, and her headlamp’s batteries died. With no cell signal, Les Becquets was completely isolated—and terrified. After finding her way back to camp, she began to imagine the story of a woman surviving alone in the wild as the odds stack up against her. Les Becquets has spent much of her life outdoors and conducted extensive research for the book on the very trails and in the spaces she writes about. We’ve included more about the author’s fascinating background in a Q&A that follows.

The struggle against the elements mirrors Amy Raye and Pru’s attempts to survive their own lives and emotional scars. As the novel follows the parallel stories of Amy Raye and Pru – both past and present – BREAKING WILD assumes the white-knuckled pace of a thriller laying bare Amy Raye’s struggle to remain alive despite harrowing conditions, and Pru’s dogged pursuit of the woman who, against all odds, she believes she can find. Les Becquets deftly juggles darkness, hope, mounting suspense, and gritty realism to create a story that keeps readers guessing and deeply invested in Amy Raye and Pru until the novel’s surprising end.

Diane Les Becquets is a faculty member and former director of the MFA Program in Fiction and Non-Fiction at Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to teaching creative writing, she has worked as a medical journalist; an archaeology assistant; a marketing consultant; a sand and gravel dispatcher; a copywriter; and a lifeguard, and is also an avid outdoorswoman. A native of Nashville, she spent almost fourteen years living in a small Colorado ranching town before moving to New Hampshire.